ABSTRACT: I discuss some of the features
of the analysis of culture provided by
the Britist idealist philosopher, Bernard Bosanquet (1848-1923). It has
been suggested that Bosanquet's philosophical views, especially on
topics related to culture, were determined by the 'absolutist'
metaphysics he inherited from Hegel and F. H. Bradley, and that one can
see a shift in his work from an early humanism, contemporary with his
studies in logic, to a late anti-humanism. (1)
I argue that this account is
problematic, that Bosanquet's discussion of cultural phenomena in fact
consistently reflected principles present in his logic, and that these
were articulated long before his explicitly absolutist metaphysical
views. Specifically, I briefly outline three elements constitutive of a
discussion of culture  aesthetics, religion and social life  and show how
Bosanquet's account of each of them displays characteristics that are
typically found in his logic. Since Bosanquet never abandoned the
idealist logic of his youth  indeed, he wrote on the topic throughout his
philosophical career  there is reason to doubt that he ever gave up the
humanist values associated with them. This, I conclude, obliges us to
reevaluate the standard assessments of Bosanquet's philosophy.

I

The word 'culture', in a broad sense, refers to "the whole way of life,
material, intellectual, and spiritual, of a given
society." (1) It is
understood as not simply what exists in a society at a particular moment,
but as something both historical and dynamic. Moreover, a discussion of
the 'whole way of life' of a society involves more than artistic and
intellectual work; it includes a society's customs, its mores and moral
principles, its laws, its manner of educating its citizens, and its
understanding of spiritual life.

Much of Bosanquet's work was concerned with culture, though he never
wrote explicitly on the topic. Among his principal interests was the
moral, intellectual and spiritual development of individuals in
society  'the perfection of human personality' ('perfection,' here, being a
synonym for 'cultivation' (3) )  and the
practices and institutions that
contributed to this. In his some 20 books and over 200 articles and
reviews, he wrote on ethics, aesthetics, religion, education, social work
and social policy, law, and psychology. Indeed, one of his earliest works
was a collection of humanist essays entitled The Civilization of
Christendom. (4)

II

There is, then, little associated with the term 'culture' that
Bosanquet did not study. To see better what was involved in his
understanding of this issue, I shall begin by focusing on three of the
'constituents' of culture indicated above  aesthetics, religion and social
life.

A. Aesthetics

Bosanquet's views on culture are perhaps best illustrated in his
aesthetics. His A History of Aesthetic (1892) was the first such
study in the English language and, in addition to several essays on the
topic, his writings in metaphysics, ethics and religion are replete with
examples from the world of art.

In Three Lectures on Aesthetic (1915), Bosanquet was primarily
concerned with analysing the 'aesthetic attitude' which, he says, is an
activity of the whole person  "body-and-mind." Starting from the case of
simple aesthetic experience, he says that the aesthetic attitude or
consciousness is 'a preoccupation with a pleasant feeling, embodied in an
object [i.e., "an appearance presented to us through perception or
imagination"] which can be contemplated'.
(5) There is no distinction between
'art' and the feelings it evokes in us, and when we imaginatively
contemplate an art object, we are "able to live in it as an embodiment
of our feeling." (6)
The work of art, then, is not so much an object of
contemplation as something in which the observer finds him or herself
'expressed.'

Art is, then, an expression of spirit, but is also revelatory of the
spiritual character of the world. It brings us out of our finite selves,
and yet into contact with values that deepen our self-understanding.

Finally, the appreciation of a work of art requires understanding it as
a whole or as a unity  by reference not only to the elements or features
within the art object itself, but to the environment in which the work
comes to be. Art (and aesthetic consciousness) have their basis, as it
were, only in a community or a larger whole. For Bosanquet, aesthetic
consciousness and art are important aspects of human life, though an
analysis of them is inseparable from an understanding of human
consciousness.

Yet Bosanquet's interests go beyond providing an analysis of aesthetic
experience. He was also concerned with such questions as the different
'kinds' of beauty. Bosanquet suggests that while we may normally
distinguish between beauty and ugliness, there is nothing that is truly
ugly in genuine art. Thus, he speaks of 'difficult' beauty  i.e., cases
where, because of some feature in the object (e.g., tension or intricacy)
and of some failure in the individual observer (e.g., of education,
imagination, experience, or effort), there is an inability to appreciate
the beauty of the object.

B. Religion

Bosanquet's account of religion is typical of the humanistic
demythologising of the 19th century (e.g., by David Strauss and Ferdinand
Baur)  although, interestingly, one also finds parallels between it and
some contemporary philosophy of religion (e.g., that of D.Z. Phillips).

Bosanquet defines 'religion' as "that set of objects, habits, and
convictions [...] which [one] would rather die for than abandon, or at least
would feel himself excommunicated from humanity if he did abandon"  this,
he adds, could well differ from one's "nominal creed."
(7)(8) Thus, 'religious
belief' is something to which an individual has a commitment, which is a
part of one's sense of self and which he or she considers more important
than his or her own life, but it does not entail holding any
specific set of beliefs or dogmas. In fact, Bosanquet challenged
such traditional notions as the personality of God and the existence of an
afterlife.

But this does not mean that Bosanquet thought that religion was false.
He held that religious belief is 'true' so far as it is an expression of a
nisus to totality or a move to wholeness  e.g., to the "unity of will and
belief in the supreme Good." (9) And
to the extent that religious belief is,
and promotes, a unity at the level of consciousness, it can also be said
to be 'true.'

Religion  in the sense of practice and the holding of particular
beliefs  is something that Bosanquet sees as having 'evolved' from a
'subjective' to an 'objective' form towards what he calls 'Absolute
religion.' He holds that Christianity is a religion where we find divinity
"progressively revealing itself" and where there is "a true sense of
'unity between object and subject'." (11)
This, he says, is a progress over
earlier stages of religion. But, he continues, Christianity itself must
evolve, so that "man more fully apprehends his true humanity and his
oneness with the spirit which is in the world."
(12) No existing set of
practices or beliefs, then, constitutes a complete expression of the
'truth.'

C. Social Life

A third concern for Bosanquet, bearing on culture, was social
life  politics, law, ethics, social reform and public policy.

In The Philosophical Theory of the State and in related essays,
Bosanquet's aim was to address issues in contemporary political thought
and, in particular, the 'problem' of political obligation. Here, he
developed Rousseau's conception of the 'general will,' and used this to
explain the nature of the state, its positive role in human freedom, and
its limits. This same notion of the general or 'real' will enabled
Bosanquet both to provide an account of human rights based on one's
'station' in society and the duties that followed from it and to explain
the nature of punishment (which he took to be largely retributive).

What is this 'real' will? On Bosanquet's view, the will of the
individual is "a mental system" whose parts  "ideas or groups of ideas"  are
"connected in various degrees, and more or less subordinated to some
dominant ideas which, as a rule, dictate the place and importance" of the
other ideas that one has. (13)
Thus, "[i]n order to obtain a full statement of
what we will, what we want at any moment must at least be corrected and
amended by what we want at all other moments."
(14) In fact, given that these
dominant ideas are shared with others, to know what one's will is, one
must be concerned with all of the other wants, purposes, associations and
feelings that she and others have (or might have) given all of the
knowledge available. The 'product' is one's 'real will'.

Bosanquet sees a relation between this will and the 'common good'  "the
ineradicable impulse of an intelligent being to a good extending beyond
itself." (15) This 'good'
is nothing other than "the existence and the
perfection of human personality" (16) which
Bosanquet identifies with "the
excellence of souls" (17) and the complete
realisation of the individual. (18)

Now so far as the state reflects this will and this common good, its
action is morally allowable. Like Hegel, Bosanquet saw the modern state as
an 'organism', reflecting a shared understanding of the good  though he
extended Hegel's account so that legitimate state action was principally
'the hindrance of hindrances' to human development. Moreover, like Hegel,
he argued that the state, like all other 'social institutions' was best
understood as an 'ethical idea' and as existing at the level of
consciousness. Again, it is in terms of the 'common good' that one's
'station' or 'function' in society was defined, and it is conscientiously
carrying out of the duties attached to one's 'station' that constitutes
ethical behaviour. Thus, Bosanquet rejects a "false particularisation" of
individuals which emphasizes them as 'isolated' beings, independent of a
"relation to the end." (19) In fact,
it is primarily in light of one's service
in the social order that a person has the basis for speaking of his or her
particular identity. Even if people cannot be 'reduced' to their special
service or 'function,' (20) they
clearly cannot be separated from it.

IV

We can see from this brief outline of Bosanquet's views on aesthetics,
religion, and social and political that certain principles recur.

It has generally been held that these common principles are determined
by Bosanquet's absolute idealist metaphysics. For example, the notion of
'the Absolute'  the most comprehensive description of reality  was a central
theme of his Gifford lectures, The Principle of Individuality and
Value(21) and The Value
and Destiny of the Individual. (22) Still, one
cannot say that Bosanquet's views on culture are just extrapolations of
this 'absolutism.' It is important to note that Bosanquet's fullest
articulation of his metaphysics came late in life (when he was 63 years
old), and after much of his work in aesthetics, religion, and social
philosophy had been done. Arguably, it is not his metaphysics that
determined his views on culture, but the other way around  his aesthetics
and analyses of religion and social life provided guidelines for his
metaphysics.

But if it is not Bosanquet's metaphysics that explains the recurrent
themes in these different aspects of culture, what does? I would suggest
that what underlies Bosanquet's study of culture  and the whole of his
philosophical work  is his logic and, specifically, his view of the logical
character of 'individuality.' His earliest philosophical work was in
logic, and his interest in logic continued through his
career. (23)

To see how Bosanquet's logic is fundamental to his philosophy  and,
specifically, to his analysis of culture  it is instructive to consider
what he says logic is.

In The Principle of Individuality and Value, Bosanquet states
that "By Logic we understand, with Plato and Hegel, the supreme law or
nature of experience, the impulse towards unity and coherence [...] by
which every fragment yearns towards the whole to which it belongs, and
every self to its completion in the Absolute, and of which the Absolute
itself is at once an incarnation and a satisfaction."
(24) It is, he writes,
"the clue to reality, value and freedom." (25)

There seem to be three fundamental features in this logic. First, logic
is concerned with "the properties which are possessed by objects or ideas
in so far as they are members of the world of
knowledge." (26)
Everything that can be studied must be 'asserted in consciousness' and,
thus, falls into the province of logic. Second, Bosanquet writes that
reality is "composed of contents determined by systematic combination in a
single coherent structure." (27) To
have a complete description of some
thing, then, it must be understood in its context and in its relations to
other things. Bosanquet's coherence theory of truth reflects this. To say
that a judgement is 'true,' we take the system in which the judgement is
bound up and then we note "how unintelligible that part of our world...
would become if we denied that judgement."
(28) Third, acknowledging the
essential incompleteness of our understanding of the world, Bosanquet's
logic is 'dialectical,' wherein 'experience forces thought along certain
lines from partial to more complete notions.'
(29) The coherence of thought is
arrived at via an evolutionary process. Still, this does not mean
that we will some day arrive at ultimate truth. Bosanquet notes that "the
true meaning of propositions lies always ahead of fully conscious usage,
as the real reality lies ahead of actual experience.'
(30)

Now, each of these logical principles are present throughout
Bosanquet's reflections on culture.

For example, Bosanquet speaks of the aesthetic experience as the
assertion of a work of art in consciousness; this is clearly parallel to
his claim that thought is 'the self assertion of reality [...] within
[...] a mind.' Moreover, as he notes at the beginning of his Three
Lectures, aesthetic experience is 'common'  i.e., it is something that
requires others and is shared. Again, in art, as in logic, no element is
'isolated;' starting from any particular, we are led to the 'whole'  i.e.,
what Bosanquet will later, in his metaphysics, call 'the Absolute.' Thus,
art allows access to the Absolute through 'feeling' (in Bosanquet's broad
sense of the term). And because of the interdependency among its parts, a
work of art as a whole can be seen as a universal  what Bosanquet calls a
'concrete universal.' Furthermore, just as, in logic, there is no absolute
error, so there is no genuine ugliness in art; what we call error and
ugliness, respectively, is simply failing to see the phenomenon to be
explained in relation to the whole. In short, Bosanquet's aesthetics
reflects his coherence theory. Indeed, his most direct statement of
his philosophical method is given in the Three Lectures: that "I
only know in philosophy one method, and that is to expand all the
relevant facts, taken together, into ideas which approve themselves to
thought as exhaustive and self-consistent." (31)

Recall that, in his account of religion, Bosanquet speaks of religion
as having 'evolved' from a 'subjective' to an 'objective' form, towards
what he calls 'Absolute religion.' It is just this 'evolution'  an inherent
operation of the principle of non-contradiction  that is present in his
account of knowledge and thought as a whole. Consider also Bosanquet's
description of religious 'truth.' In speaking of particular religious
claims  for example, the characteristics of infinite being  the standards
that he suggests we employ to assess the truth of such beliefs seem to be
much the same as those we use to assess the truth of any particular belief
whatever  namely, coherence. And when Bosanquet writes that religious
belief is 'true' so far as it is an expression of a 'nisus to totality,'
here, too, truth is determined by coherence. Religion is 'true,' not
because it 'corresponds' to something in reality, but because it is the
expression of, and commitment to, reality as coherent; there is nothing
'outside' in the 'world' that makes it 'true.' Furthermore, when Bosanquet
writes that in religious belief, as in morality, one must 'die to live,'
'death' is not the annihilation of all that an individual is, but passing
from what is 'lesser' in us so that what is 'greater' can be preserved and
grow. This reflects the very principle present in his logic, when he
considers the status of individual propositions within a 'special science'
or system. That is, the meaning and truth of a judgement is modified as it
is put into relation with other 'true' judgements, so that 'truth' is
possible only once all are reflected in 'the content of a single
persistent and all-embracing judgement' (32)
 something which does not deny, but
transcends, all particular judgements.

Finally, the notions of the general or 'real' will and of one's
'station' within a community are fundamental to Bosanquet's description of
politics and social life. This latter idea of one's 'stations' clearly
reflects Bosanquet's logic, where the meaning and truth of (individual)
judgements are determinable only in terms of the system in which they
appear. The concept of the 'real' will is, moreover, a reflection of the
general logical principle that 'truth' is not a property of a judgement in
isolation, but properly of all judgements understood in relation to one
another. Indeed, the notion of the 'general will' itself, as a will that
one may not be aware of in "momentary consciousness,"
(33) is prefigured in his
logic where, recall, Bosanquet says that "true meaning [...] lies always
ahead of fully conscious usage."
(34) Of course, it would be implausible to
claim that all of Bosanquet's criticisms of political individualism were
based simply on his logic, but it is obvious that they are consistent with
it. (35)

V

In this paper, I have suggested that Bosanquet's study of cultural
phenomena such as aesthetics, religion and social life reveal features
that 'have their home' in his logic, rather than primarily in his later
'absolutist' metaphysics. (36)
(In fact, though I cannot provide the argument
here, a number of other central concepts, such as 'will,' 'belief,'
'experience,' and 'reality,' also depend on these same logical
principles.) Moreover, Bosanquet defended his idealist logic throughout
his career, and there is no evidence of any significant shift in his views
here. Thus, pace Francois Houang, (37)
there is reason to doubt that
Bosanquet's late philosophy was inconsistent with his early humanism and,
therefore, to challenge some of the standard assessments of his work as a
whole.

Notes

(1) Indeed, François Houang argues that there is a transition in
Bosanquet's thought from his early humanism (contemporary with his studies
in logic) to an 'absolutism' reflected especially in his late metaphysical
investigations). See his De l'humanisme à l'absolutisme: l'évolution de
la pensée religieuse du néo-hégélien anglais Bernard Bosanquet. Paris,
Vrin, 1954.

(10) "The Evolution of Religion," in International Journal of
Ethics, V (1894-95): 432-444, p. 443.

(11) "The Evolution of Religion," p. 436.

(12) "The Evolution of Religion," p. 444.

(13) "The Reality of the General Will," International Journal of
Ethics, IV (1893-1894), pp. 308-321, at p. 311.

(14) The Philosophical Theory of the State, p. 111.

(15) The Philosophical Theory of the State, p. 102.

(16) The Philosophical Theory of the State, p. 189.

(17) See The Philosophical Theory of the State, pp. xxxvii and
xxxix.

(18) See The Philosophical Theory of the State, pp. xv-xvi.

(19) The Philosophical Theory of the State, p. 189.

(20) The Philosophical Theory of the State, p. 292; see "The
Kingdom of God on Earth," in Essays and Addresses. London, 1889,
pp. 108-130, at p. 122.

(21) London: Macmillan, 1912.

(22) London: Macmillan, 1913.

(23) In 1883, Bosanquet published an essay entitled "Logic as the Science
of Knowledge," (In Essays in Philosophical Criticism, ed. A. Seth
and R. B. Haldane, London: Longmans, 1883, pp. 67-101) followed by a
translation of two volumes by Hermann Lotze (Lotze's System of
Philosophy Part I. Logic in Three Books of Thought, of Investigation, and
of Knowledge, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1884; second edition: Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1888, and Lotze's System of Philosophy Part II.
Metaphysic in Three Books Ontology, Cosmology, and Psychology,
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1884; second edition: Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1887) in 1884, his own Knowledge and Reality (London: Kegan Paul,
Trench)-a criticism of F.H. Bradley's Principles of Logic, in 1885
and, three years later, his two-volume Logic, or the Morphology of
Knowledge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888; second edition, 1911). In
1895, while engaged in adult education, he published a short volume,
The Essentials of Logic (London and New York: Macmillan), in which
the principal elements of his earlier work were presented. In 1911, a
second edition of his Logic appeared and, thereafter, Bosanquet was
involved in a number of exchanges in philosophical journals, leading to
his Implication and Linear Inference (1920), published shortly
before his death.

(35) Bosanquet clearly rejected 'individualism' in logic-he held that the
meaning of a judgement is knowable only so far as it is understood in
relation to other judgements-and in human psychology-see his criticism of
the 'associationist' and 'push and pull psychology' that, he claimed,
underlies the logic of J.S. Mill and other empiricist thinkers (such as
Alexander Bain).

(36) One last comment on Bosanquet's perspective on culture might be noted
here. Bosanquet agreed that art, social life and religion are phenomena
that one finds in different societies and that these societies may
understand them differently. Nevertheless, he did not think that they were
phenomena that were describable only within a particular society,
and he would see no reason to think that any culture is ultimately
incommensurable with any other. This accords again with Bosanquet's logic
that no 'special science' is entirely separated or completely isolable
from the whole.